Something I’ve noticed recently is that multiple versions of the mythos have regular everyday people mentioning the Batcave in conversation, even if they don’t know its location. What reason does Bruce have to allow the existence of his secret base be public knowledge? It just invites people to go looking for it, especially when he gives it a name that tells people what it is. Why not just allow where he works from to be a mystery? It’s not like Superman where he’s a public face that can mention “yeah, I have a fortress in the Arctic” without much worry of people trying to find it.
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Average citizen doesn’t know about it.
You are right that it is weird how that is part of popular perception of the Batman. My best bet is that possibly Green Arrow talked in an interview about his Arrow Cave being better than the Batcave at some point.
It would be natural to assume he has some kind of secret base anyway. There must be someplace he keeps all that stuff. Labeling it “the Batcave” doesn’t tell anyone much. It doesn’t even have to be a literal cave, anymore than Captain Man’s Mancave had to be.
He’s called Batman. Bats live in caves. It’s not unreasonable some people will just come up with that name on their own.
He mentions it to civilians and police. “I’ll have to take this sample back to the Batcave to analyze it” etc.
He also brought The Penguin there at least once in the 1960s. That guy’s a talker.
He mentions to the police that he analyzed some evidence in the batcave. They mention it to their partners/friends, word gets around.
I feel like in reality it would be the other way around. I feel like Batman wouldn’t call it his, “batcave”… And that name is really only for us viewers, readers or for the citizens of Gotham amongst themselves.
“To the batcave!” It’s so funny because no dark brooding man beating the shit out of bad people and say that for real.
I assume enough of the other members of the Justice League have been there that it’s become semi-common knowledge that Batman has a secret base called the batcave.
It’s reasonable to assume he’d have a specific base of operations. Bats live in caves, so the Batcave would be a good nickname for it. Few people probably expect it to be a real cave. Personally I’d assume he was operating out of an abandoned warehouse or an underground parking garage only he had a key to.
May not apply to all versions, but in many of the more modern incarnations Bruce makes a deliberate effort to prop Batman up as an almost mythological figure. Partially to make criminals fearful and partially because he knows he can’t personally do this forever and he wants “Batman” (or at least, the idea of Batman) to outlive him.
A big part of making your persona mythological is carefully balancing the amount of information you divulge. Yes, you want to be mysterious and keep a lot of things secret (especially tactically significant things), but if you clam up and never reveal ANYTHING then there’s nothing to capture the public’s attention and pretty soon you’re just “that rando in the costume who gives the police tips sometimes”, if they even think of you at all.
So giving just a little taste, like that you have a secret base that you casually hint thematically matches your persona, is a safe way to give the public a little something to glom on to – something to set everyone’s imaginations on fire and thinking about Batman in bigger terms.
Anyone with a lick of common sense will already realize Batman has some kind of base anyway, because duh, and the fact that it kinda sounds like the base might play in to the Bat motif isn’t surprising either. So in the end, he’s not really divulging anything important.
Think about it this way:
Batman has to have some base of operations. There’s no way he can’t.
Batman is also… Batman.
Bats often and most famously live in caves.
It’s unlikely that the common person knows for certain that the Batcave is a literal cave in Gotham, even if they may suspect that Batman does work there. “The Batcave” just makes sense as a place a guy named “Batman” would live/work.
In several continuities, Batman gives talks about his career & crime fighting to try and inspire people. There’s even a comic cover where he is stood in front of a full diagram of the batcave giving a talk.
Plus a number of civilians, heroes & villains have ended up there. Depending on the situation/trust they may be blindfolded en route so they don’t know how to get there.
I think most people don’t even know he has a cave….
He has had to take people there for different reasons and if you had been there you would tell everyone.
Its just idle popular conjuncture that in this case happens to have gotten it right — “so, he’s a guy who’s all about bats, he’s got to hide out somewhere sometimes, bats like caves, so he’s probably got some kind of bat-cave.” It’s like people assuming Spider-Man has a “web-lair,” just something suggested by the hero’s theming.
He’s a guy that dresses up like a bat. It’s not unreasonable to assume the guy that dresses like a bat and has a bunch of bat themed stuff would also have a cave